Abrams: Some on right blaming Biden for Paul Pelosi attack
(NewsNation) — We now know the attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband appears to be politically motivated. After all, the attacker allegedly shouted “Where’s Nancy?” multiple times. The San Francisco district attorney confirmed Pelosi, the speaker of the U.S. House, was the target of a political attack.
But rather than coming together to condemn the attack with no caveats, no whataboutisms and no politics, we’ve seen just the opposite.
From the left, we immediately saw leaders blaming the political rhetoric from the right for the attack. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez blasted Fox News for “regularly generating high volumes of death threats to elected officials while pumping propaganda for an extreme right wing that openly embraces fascism.”
Hillary Clinton said on Twitter that, “The Republican Party and its mouthpieces now regularly spread hate and deranged conspiracy theories. It is shocking but not surprising that violence is the result.”
There were many others.
Now, while the suspect seems to have been a nudist who lived in the far-left neighborhood of the Castro District in San Francisco, he also had a blog that espoused fringe right extremist conspiracy theories.
But I also believe it’s not fair or helpful or productive for the left to be blaming others for this guy’s conduct. In the same way, I don’t point fingers at video game makers for violence from kids who played too many games.
But it’s even more absurd for some on the right to try to actually blame President Joe Biden for the attack. The guy was there to get Democrat Nancy Pelosi, who the suspect was described as the “leader of the pack” of lies told by the Democratic Party.
So let’s not pretend it was anything else. But somehow Fox News and other far right outlets somehow saw an opportunity like this from Jackie DeAngelis on Fox News:
“Why is our country so divided? President Biden, you got up to the podium and said you were going to bring us together? And that was one of the things you promised people. It’s one of the reasons they voted for you. And they backed away from Trump because they did think that he was divisive. So why is this happening? And why are we so polarized?”
She’s really blaming Biden for an attack by a guy spouting far right wing dogma? Again, I’m not blaming, but Fox News contributor Caitlyn Jenner then piled on.
“Another major takeaway is Biden. Truly, he has done nothing to tone down the rhetoric and unite this nation. Violence in our nation is everywhere, and it’s at record levels. This is truly … He’s become kind of the divider in chief.”
Then when discussing the attack on Paul Pelosi, Fox News host, Steve Hilton added this later the same day:
“Biden has done more than almost anyone to (create) hate and division in this country, the direct opposite of what he was elected to do. If he had a mandate for anything at all, and he barely did because he barely did a campaign in the traditional sense, it was to unite the country, restore the soul of America, whatever he talked about. He’s done exactly the opposite.”
There are a lot of reasons to criticize the president. You’ll hear them sometimes on this show. This isn’t the time for one of them. Look, I don’t blame Fox or anyone on the right or left for the attack. For Fox to point fingers at that division in the wake of the incident targeting the Pelosis — it’s pretty rich.
Some, like Fox’s Jesse Watters, are trying to make you think that there must be more, there must be a conspiracy at play.
“How can this homeless drug addict even get inside the house? No one has been able to give us a straight answer about that. Now, there was glass broken at the rear door. We’ve seen those photos, but there looks like there’s glass on both sides, inside and out, and FBI sources are telling primetime that’s odd,” Watters said.
The same Watters that has been screaming about the “corrupt FBI” for months and wants the agency disbanded now has his FBI sources whispering in his ear about a conspiracy theory that the district attorney specifically had addressed less than an hour earlier.
“He forced his way into the home through a rear glass door by breaking that glass,” the DA said.
This is the time to just call it straight. This unhinged fringe nut tried to attack Nancy Pelosi and he fell short when just her husband was home. Now Paul Pelosi deserves all of our nonpoliticized thoughts and prayers. Whatever you think of him and her — no one deserves this. Period. End of discussion.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author, and not of NewsNation.